Gleaner Published: Tuesday 19 March 2019

Shamone Brailsford had no plans to join the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) while growing up, but after spending one year in the Jamaica National Service Corps (JNSC), the 21-year-old St Catherine resident is now looking forward to joining the Air Wing.

“When I went to Up Park Camp, I thought I could do this for a year and then move on to do something else, [but] I am still here,” she said.

The JNSC is now the standard mode for enlisting persons wanting to join the JDF and is helping to transform youths to become agents of change in their communities.

More than 1,500 young people have benefited from the programme so far and, like Brailsford, have an interest in serving.

“The programme, I would say, is a lifesaver. Because whilst training, I would have interacted with several persons – persons who I have trained with and persons who passed out in the intake before me. What I got to understand was that more than 50 per cent of us didn’t have jobs before,” she said.

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